The Man Who Lives for Love

Originally issued in Japan in 2001, this collaboration between Jon Spencer and brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson (the North Mississippi All-Stars) is finally released in the U.S., aided by the addition of six bonus tracks.

Like a family of circus performers executing daring feats of acrobatics-- only with blues-- the Dickinson boys Luther and Cody form an unbelievably tight two-man band, assaying riffs inspired by regional bluesmen like Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside and hitting head-of-a-pin grooves like nobody's business. The Dickinsons got together with Jon Spencer, and the result is The Man Who Lives for Love, which was originally released exclusively in Japan in 2001 but is finally available in the States with six bonus tracks. Honestly, it's difficult to see what all the fuss is about. The album is fairly predictable and only intermittently exciting, a sprawling record that showcases what the Dickinson boys do best and what Spencer does all the damn time.

Sounding livelier here than they did as John Hiatt's backing band on last year's Master of Disaster-- which should surprise exactly no one-- Luther and Cody open things up with the galloping rhythm of "It's a Drag" and generally try to make each song snap perfectly into a groove. They create a considerable commotion on "Flood (The Awful Truth, The Living End)", which sounds like those symbols cartoonists use for f$%^(@#$kin' cuss words. In fact, the brothers sound fiercer and more dangerous here than they are with their full-time band the North Mississippi All-Stars, who have since sunk into lackadaisical Southern jamming. And dear old dad-- that's legendary producer Jim Dickinson to you-- captures all the texture in Luther's bottleneck squalls on "I'm Not Ready" and Cody's snappy snare groove on "Cryin'".

If the Dickinson boys sound bolder, Spencer just sounds the same, bringing the old tics and mockabilly mannerisms that he's been working for years and years. He's like Jack Nicholson, but not in a good way: He always plays himself, no matter what the part calls for. Spencer always sounds best when the music is abrasively raw and spontaneous, with an unrehearsed amateurishness to its skuzzy noise-- see his original band Pussy Galore or his early Blues Explosion albums. However, when the music's cleaner and the musicians more capable-- here as on last year's Heavy Trash-- Spencer comes across as a cartoon, an aged Elvis impersonator drained of his musical and sexual charisma. The first time he barks one of his "Yeah!"'s over Luther's guitar riffs on "That's a Drag" is, admittedly, pretty electrifying, but he uses that very same "Yeah!" to punctuate nearly every track, each grunt identical to the previous one. Midway through the 10-minute ham-epic "I'm So Alone", you may wonder why the hell you ever took him seriously in the first place.